Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Lost Marble Notebook of Forgotten Girl & Random Boy
    The Lost Marble Notebook of Forgotten Girl & Random Boy
    The Lost Marble Notebook of Forgotten Girl & Random Boy
    Ebook322 pages1 hour

    The Lost Marble Notebook of Forgotten Girl & Random Boy

    By Marie Jaskulka

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    If I let you read mine, will you let me read yours?

    Forgotten Girl, a fifteen-year-old poet, is going through the most difficult time of her lifethe breakup of her parents, and her mom’s resulting depressionwhen she meets Random Boy, a hot guy who, like her, feels like an outcast and secretly writes poetry to deal with everything going on in his life.

    In The Lost Marble Notebook of Forgotten Girl & Random Boy, the couple’s poems come together to tell their unique love story. The two nameless teenagers come from opposite sides of the tracks, yet they find understanding in each other when they lay bare their life stories through the poetry they write and share with each other.

    Through verse, they document the power of first kisses, the joy of finally having someone on their side, the devastation of jealousy, and the heartbreaking sadness of what each of them is simultaneously dealing with at home and hiding from the world. Finally they have someone to tell and somewhere to tell it in their marble notebook.

    This is the powerful story of two imperfect teens in first love who find solace in poetry.

    Sky Pony Press, with our Good Books, Racehorse and Arcade imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of books for young readerspicture books for small children, chapter books, books for middle grade readers, and novels for young adults. Our list includes bestsellers for children who love to play Minecraft; stories told with LEGO bricks; books that teach lessons about tolerance, patience, and the environment, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSky Pony
    Release dateApr 7, 2015
    ISBN9781634500043
    The Lost Marble Notebook of Forgotten Girl & Random Boy

    Related to The Lost Marble Notebook of Forgotten Girl & Random Boy

    Related ebooks

    Children's Love & Romance For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      I Failed My Daughter

      Jul 29, 2022

      I Failed My Daughter
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Waiting Room

      May 10, 2023

      Overhead the lights hummed. They were bright and fluorescent, and they reflected off the clean white walls of the waiting room to produce the unsettling effect of being folded away inside a sheet of paper. Cross-legged on the floor by the door, the b

      9 min read

    • Article

      Blood Oranges

      Jul 24, 2019

      Blood Oranges
      10 min read

    • Article

      Linnea Kataja

      Feb 21, 2020

      Linnea Kataja
      1 min read

    • Article

      Final Determination

      May 10, 2023

      Living people get a lot wrong about the After Life. It isn’t binary Heaven or Hell but a spectrum where most people end up somewhere better than their Earthly life. There’s also a state of Abeyance where you stay if you have unfinished business. For

      12 min read

    • Article

      The Naked Truth

      Oct 28, 2021

      The Naked Truth
      4 min read

    • Article

      Perfection

      Jun 9, 2020

      For years I could barely write a page. I thought I was becoming a virtuoso of smallness while the grief, which is wordless, occupied an ever-greater volume. My friend lived in the estates on the bad side of town. Let’s go to the forest, she said when

      9 min read

    • Article

      Prose

      Jul 6, 2023

      Prose
      2 min read

    • Article

      Finding Peace—and Briefly, Freedom—at My Grandfather’s Funeral

      Oct 11, 2019

      “Saying goodbye with the people who loved him—and me—I remember that I am not the tomb that imprisons me.”

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Space Between Us

      Oct 9, 2019

      The Space Between Us
      8 min read

    • Article

      Birthday Surprise

      Sep 17, 2021

      Birthday Surprise
      5 min read

    • Article

      “I Escaped My Grandfather’s Sex Cult”

      Mar 16, 2022

      I was born into the Family, a religious movement founded in Huntington Beach, California, in 1968 by my grandfather David Brandt Berg, with help from his four children, including my father, Hosea. It was known as the Children of God in its early days

      8 min read

    • Article

      Musings On My Father

      Aug 8, 2022

      Musings On My Father
      5 min read

    • Article

      LOVE, Virtually

      Feb 16, 2020

      LOVE, Virtually
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Problem with My Dachshund

      Dec 11, 2019

      The Problem with My Dachshund
      10 min read

    • Article

      Blackberries

      Apr 5, 2023

      Blackberries
      24 min read

    • Article

      Mature Adults In Your Area

      Aug 8, 2022

      I would say that I don’t normally do this kind of thing, except that on and off over the months and years, I’ve done “these kinds of things” too many times for that to be true. So yeah, I go on dates from time to time. This recent guy wouldn’t choose

      6 min read

    • Article

      Festival

      Sep 15, 2018

      My husband, who loved festivals, who was a great fan of festivals, wanted to get to the square in time for the first band at eleven o’clock. From bed, the dog and I watched him dress. He tried on various T-shirts, declaring some of them too tight and

      13 min read

    • Article

      A Little About Why

      Jun 1, 2023

      A Little About Why
      15 min read

    • Article

      Love, Lust, and More

      Feb 12, 2020

      Fleetwood Mac was singing She is dancing away from you now, and I squirmed in my seat. Kabir was rubbing my thigh as he drove, a gesture I once thought was reserved for me. Bah! I also used to think he only took naked selfies in bed with me, but then

      11 min read

    • Article

      After “The End”

      Oct 10, 2022

      I walked down the road with a hunched back and a wet cigarette in my mouth—the fire had died a while back. My hands were tucked into the pockets of my jacket, and my hair fell over my face, limiting my sight. But I wasn’t really seeing where I was go

      10 min read

    • Article

      Alan Cumming

      Nov 1, 2021

      Alan Cumming
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Lost Marble Notebook of Forgotten Girl & Random Boy

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Lost Marble Notebook of Forgotten Girl & Random Boy - Marie Jaskulka

      Black Fate

      They fight

      like two rabid rivals,

      forgetting

      they spawned

      an innocent bystander

      who listens

      to every word.

      Most kids

      wish their parents

      were still together—

      not me.

      She screams, "You

      bastard! How could you

      do this

      to us?"

      Dad answers in

      silence, which

      Mom pierces

      with

      curses

      until Dad shuts her up

      with his big man voice,

      "Because I can’t

      stand this anymore—

      I can’t stand you and . . ."

      . . . = Me?

      I am above it all,

      literally,

      in a pink bedroom

      that doesn’t fit me anymore.

      Books lie

      open and closed—

      millions of

      happily ever afters

      surround me.

      Desperate for air,

      I go to the window.

      With my rose-colored curtains

      split wide open,

      I check the neighborhood

      spread out before me

      like Legos. I am imagining

      jumping—maybe

      that would shut them up—

      when

      I spot a Random Boy,

      clad in black,

      walking my street,

      focused and sinister,

      smoke rising from him

      as though he’s on fire.

      He doesn’t know I exist

      until

      I thrust open the window

      and lean out into the cold.

      I don’t know why, but I

      stick two fingers in my mouth

      and whistle.

      Everything about me goes rigid

      as he turns his head

      toward me

      and listens—

      not to me,

      but to them.

      Godammit! Mom screams.

      That is mine!

      Whatever it is

      shatters

      as the boy

      smiles pitifully

      and waves.

      I wave, too,

      and watch him

      approach.

      His eyes don’t leave mine.

      When he gets to

      the sidewalk

      in front of me, he

      watches me

      for a second,

      listening to my parents’

      love

      self-destructing,

      and his smile changes.

      His eyes trail down

      the façade of my house, conspiring.

      I can feel my world shifting as

      he climbs up

      onto the porch roof

      adeptly

      while my father screams,

      unaware.

      He is at my window

      asking, Rough day?

      as though he does this

      sort of thing

      all the time.

      He gets comfortable

      on the sill.

      He is older than me,

      but just as—I don’t know.

      He offers me a cigarette,

      which I take.

      I don’t usually

      take things from strangers,

      or smoke,

      and boys don’t usually

      try to save me

      either.

      But I take the cigarette

      and the light he offers

      and my first drag of

      nicotine relief

      because

      I can just tell

      this random moment

      is going to change me

      forever.

      Window

      He stays

      and speaks loudest

      over the parts

      that are hardest to hear

      as though he’s heard it all before.

      He doesn’t even flinch.

      Are they always like this? he asks.

      I nod.

      "Are you always

      so beautiful?"

      I blush. I cough. I drop my cigarette,

      and we both watch it flicker and spin

      to the ground.

      Want to get out of here?

      I look down

      and envision myself

      careening

      toward

      the

      pavement.

      I won’t let you fall.

      Before I can answer,

      the door below us

      bursts open.

      Out flies my father.

      Together, this stranger and I watch

      the man in my life

      desert me

      without

      a backward glance.

      Relief

      When Dad disappears,

      he doesn’t take the time

      to tell me good-bye;

      I guess he thought it was implied.

      He just gets in his car

      and blows away

      this town

      and me.

      Mom’s in audible tears.

      Only this Random Boy

      remembers I exist,

      watching me

      more closely

      than I’ve ever been seen.

      I am too torn up

      by the goings on

      inside

      to hide,

      so I don’t know what he sees.

      Come with me, he says.

      He nods

      down a darkened street below,

      where lonely kids meet to waste

      their time together.

      I’ve always avoided the

      group on the stoop

      who loiter and litter and leer

      when people walk by.

      I’ve been too busy

      trying to evade

      my parents’ crimes

      to commit my own.

      Hollow,

      I climb down

      from my childhood

      room.

      I bloom.

      He leads.

      And I follow.

      Meet the Kids

      That’s when I start hanging

      at the corner

      with boys

      whose hair is too long

      to have parents who care.

      Did my mother care?

      Hard to tell with all her self-

      pity in the way.

      That’s when I start smoking,

      because the smell matches

      how my heart feels.

      And my Random Boy

      doesn’t ditch me.

      Rather,

      after he introduces me,

      he backs away.

      I figured he’d try to seduce me,

      but instead he studies me from afar

      like I am the only thing

      in his sight

      that isn’t transparent.

      When the two of us occupy the same space,

      the ground shakes

      from the pressure.

      Bystanders feel it, too.

      Oh girl, some chick named Mary says,

      you are in deep shit.

      How so? I pushed.

      "Bitches been all over that whore

      since as long as I can remember,

      but I’ve never seen him stare

      a hole through any chick

      before."

      Trying not to feel excited,

      I turn my eyes his way,

      after one last look.

      At eye contact impact,

      the gravitational pull

      I felt

      toward him

      freaked me out, so

      I stared him down

      until he looked away.

      Autobiography

      People wonder why I sneer all the time,

      why I can’t let a mistake go by

      without a snide comment,

      why I am

      such

      a

      bitch.

      Truth is . . .

      I’m sick,

      physically sick

      at the amount of

      assholery

      in the world

      as well as

      all the dumbasses who are oblivious to it.

      And There’s Something Else You Should Know

      Mary is determined

      to connect.

      You know Noelle?

      No.

      You know Autumn?

      No.

      You know Ali?

      No.

      "You know . . .

      anyone?"

      No

      doesn’t satisfy her,

      so I say:

      "I don’t have any

      girl friends.

      I used to have

      a friend named

      Sam. We used to play

      in mud-pie, glee-filled

      backyards. Then

      she moved to some

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1